Sunday, July 05, 2015

Review: Hamburger Helper Asian Sides: Beef Fried Rice


I like to try new foods when I see them, so when I saw this Hamburger Helper Asian sides Beef Fried Rice, I decided to get a box and try it out. Now I should also state that I have stopped buying the regular Hamburger Helper because most of it tastes really bad to me and my family doesn't like it either. There's really very little that I won't eat or at least try, but there are a few things that I refuse to eat anymore, Liver, Hamburger Helper, Liverwurst, Snails, Raw Fish or anything that smells rotten will never be eaten by me.

I usually make dinner every night for my family and I like to add potatoes, rice, noodles or some sort of side dish to accompany the protein that I make. I remember what it was like to be a single person working all the time and never having time to make a real meal. Eating Tv dinners, frozen chicken or ramen noodles for dinner isn't something I'm likely to do again now that I have a family.

Directions
The directions for this rice seemed very simple, brown the beef, add the rice and everything else in the one pan that they call for and let the rice get tender. After that you scrape everything to one side and scramble one egg in the pan and then mix it into the rice. I'm not sure who thought mixing an egg in the same pan was a good idea, it wasn't as easy as they make it seem and it didn't even look all that appetizing on the box. Eggs are for breakfast and not really all that great mixed together with hamburger and rice. I'm not sure what the makers of this rice were thinking at the time they came up with this.

Now I'm pretty easy to please, really. Knowing this was Hamburger Helper I didn't expect it to be gourmet food but I did expect it to at the very least be edible. Unfortunately, I expected too much.

I got a little out after it was done and put it on my plate, I knew right away it wasn't going to be good because of the smell but I decided not to say anything to my husband when I told him dinner was done.

Tasting
I sat nibbling my food while Ken got his food out and sat down. I watched his face as he took a bite and made a face. He took another bite, I'm guessing just to make sure he tasted what he thought he did and looked over at me, making a face.

The rice and hamburger tasted horrible, a bit like salty vomit and the eggs did absolutely nothing to help this dish. We could not even finish what we had on our plates before getting up and throwing it all in the garbage.

We were still hungry since it was dinner time so I thawed out some pork chops and made them instead.

My conclusion
I will never buy another Hamburger Helper side dish ever again. They have forever left a salty vomit like taste burned into my taste buds and I would rather eat ramen noodles for dinner from now on.

If you are looking for a good side dish for dinner tonight and you see Hamburger Helper on the store shelves. Walk away, very fast and don't look back.